One of the biggest climate controllers has returned...so what's it mean for the U.P.?
By Nick Kanczuzewski
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 7:40 a.m.
Read more: State, National, International, Agriculture, Environment, Weather, Outdoors, Science, Local
NEGAUNEE TOWNSHIP -- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that one of the biggest climate controllers, El Nino, is back.
El Nino is the warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator. It's an event that occurs about every three to seven years and the impact is felt worldwide.
"What ends up happening a lot of times is that the overall thunderstorm development and things begin to shift into those areas where you have the warmer water," said Matt Zika of the National Weather Service. "Then it affects the overall wind flow, jet stream, and the storm track across the United States."
Historically, strong El Ninos like the one back in 1997-98, have produced warm and dry weather for us in the Great Lakes.
"The forecast appears to be that the El Nino is going to strengthen to probably a moderate stage by the fall season, and then the conditions are expected to last through the upcoming winter as well," Zika added.
One positive of the El Nino--it should help suppress Atlantic hurricane activity, but it often brings warmer and drier than normal conditions to the northern U.S. For us Yoopers, the result of a moderate El Nino would be near average conditions to a bit warm and dry, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal. However, if we end up with just a weak El Nino, we could easily end up on the opposite side of the spectrum.
"Some of our coldest winters have actually been in weak El Ninos," commented TV6 Chief Meteorologist Karl Bohnak. "One that really stands out is the winter of 1976-77; that was one of the coldest winters of the last half of the 20th century."
That scenario is a definite possibility because of what's known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO. It's another climate controller based on water temperatures in the northern Pacific and it's been in a cold phase since 2007.
"Since we're in the colder phase of the PDO, we may not see the El Nino get all that strong," Bohnak added. "So, that would mean it wouldn't have that great of an influence on our weather in terms of a warm and dry impact."
Because the El Nino is currently in the midst of developing, we won't know how strong or weak the El Nino is going to be until the end of summer. The impacts may be felt as early as fall.
